Indeed, Herbert Kelleher is a charismatic leader that evolved as a leader after sweating on the factory floor (Sunoo, 1995).

He is original, true to himself and to his company. But still, he has an inclination to serve and the happiness of employees and customers is more important for him than the company’s profit. “When someone comes to me with a cost saving idea, I don’t immediately jump up and say yes. I ask: what’s the effect on the customer?”, said Kelleher (Marsh, 2012). This can tell us, that his leadership style is intended to fulfill a bigger purpose. And, due to lots of similarities between authentic and servant leadership, I suppose, it won’t be a mistake to call Herbert Kelleher an authentic leader. However, one can’t deny that he is a servant to a much bigger extent.

Speaking about authentic and servant leadership, both these concepts have the idea of emotional intelligence at their core.

According to Daniel Goleman (1999), “the father of emotional intelligence”, it refers to the ability to recognize emotions of people around you as well as one’s own, capacity for managing those emotion and creating trustworthy relationships. It combines understanding, motivation and empathy.

Examples of emotional intelligence appear throughout the case study. It can be seen even in the company’s logo, which is a heart with wings. “LUV”, one of the core values of SWA, is promoted almost everywhere, especially in the relationships. In order to keep employees satisfied, company conducts regular surveys and provides them with essential feedback. A special mentor programs are designed to train and encourage staff (Sunoo, 1995). Building good relationships occurs on all levels of organization. Things like optimism of company’s workers, their teamwork, initiativeness and self confidence together with high quality service only outline main domains of emotional intelligence, such as self and social awareness, self and relationship management (Goleman, 2002).

Further analysis of relationships between leaders and followers in SWA, shows us that company not only tries to care about their employees and, but also tends to keep them, encouraging them to participate in building an organisation. Mentioned in the case study (Sunoo, 1995), example of how SWA negotiated with pilots’ union illustrates another theoretical concept, participative followership. This type of followership means participation in discussion and decision-making processes, engagement of followers in constructive criticism and expression of their point of view. In contrast with compliant followership, that tries to remain silent no matter what decisions leaders are making, participative followership is another thing that can create healthy relationships inside an organization. Thus, it suits servant leadership very well, because together they unite employees into one team and help company develop by using not just a leader’s brain, but everyone’s. However, participative followership is by no doubts useful when company thrives. In some other context unquestioning followership may be better, for example when company experiences a recession and unpopular decisions should necessarily be made in order to survive. Same problem may arise with servant leadership, because servant leaders may be too soft to make decisions that conflict someone’s interests, even when those decisions are the right ones.

Another view on leadership styles is given in Goleman’s (2000) piece of work, connecting them to the concept of emotional intelligence. The table of comparison of these styles also shows a general impact of each one on the organisation.

A desire of SWA’s leaders to think of their followers, motivate them and create a favourable environment matches affiliative leadership style by Goleman. It is characterised by empathic approach to employees, emphasizes relationships and emotional connection. However, it is not the only leadership style used by SWA. The level of employee involvement in decision-making process and collaboration inside the company show that the environment in SWA is not at all autocratic, but democratic. Goleman’s democratic leadership best describes such a situation. By encouraging team-building and communication, this leadership style promotes equilibrium and reaches consensus through discussion (Goleman, 2000).

General impact of these styles on an organisation is considered to be positive, though it remains context-dependant. For example, when changes are strongly required and a new direction should be set, authoritative leadership could do better than any other. Further discussion of impact of SWA’s leadership styles will be objective of the second question.

2.

SWA have been running business for more than 30 years already. Their approach to performing operations is unique, and can be characterized only by 2 words, “LUV” and fun. But can this company be called a success? Lets look at the figures.

Delta Airlines employs 86 000 workers, almost the same number of employees work for American airlines. Both these companies serve more than 350 destinations and have been operating for more than 80 years. SWA has got 46000 employees and they serve only 97 destinations. In 2011 the revenue of Delta Airlines was $35 billion and the revenue of American Airlines was $22 billion. SWA had less, just $15 billion, but, considering the difference in the amount of workforce and number of destinations, it is an amazing result. In 2011 SWA became the largest airline in USA by the number of domestic passengers carried. Furthermore, according to the America Magazine, after the notorious incident on September 11, 2001, all the US airlines experienced huge recessions and had to fire thousands of employees, all except one. SWA managed to remain the only profitable carrier with full flight schedule in that year. And the next year they even hired the workers that were fired by other airlines (Koch 2004).

This means that customers have consciously preferred SWA to all other airlines. But the range of services and prices in SWA does not distinguish much from those of others. In fact, the only different thing is the company’s operating style and its approach to the clients, a direct result of Herbert Kelleher’s policy and leadership style. Moreover, in 2001 it didn’t matter how well you run your company, because the recession in airline industry had nothing to do with the quality of services, level of prices or quantity of flights per day. The terrorist attack caused people to lose trust in this particular way of travelling. But not in case of Southwest Airlines. And this is the result of how they do things. A unique atmosphere, described in the previous question, and the way SWA’s employees treat their customers together built a relationship based on trust.

By shifting from doing business in an orthodox way, Kelleher protected his company from rivalry. In their book “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant” Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim (2005) describe, how SWA managed to create a blue ocean or a new market niche. It means that Kelleher created and maintained a unique value for the customer. And he does not believe that his style could ever be copied. Indeed, now that people know about the success of SWA, anybody, who tries to implement SWA’s ideas into his or her company, would be defined as an imitator. However, implementation of fun into the operation process could also harm the company’s image, particularly when dealing with businessmen. For example, not every person would like to play the fool during a flight, and a serious businessman may just want to be left alone or to work in silence with his laptop. It means that companies should be careful experimenting with new ideas and approaches, and be ready to the possible failure.

Still, Southwest Airlines demonstrate another possibility of how beneficial can be a successful implementation of servant leadership. But every style has its pros and cons. Advantages of servant leadership are seen in SWA, among them are trustful relationships between employees, motivated workforce, collaboration, attractiveness for customers, rapid growth and so on. On the other hand, following this style of leadership may be hard during crises. In a competitive environment it could be difficult for such company to survive because of unwillingness of controlling and giving orders to others. Also, organizational goals may not be achieved due to their conflict with individual goals (Nayab, 2011). Another problem may arise out of the leadership change. When a leader steps down from his role, company would be difficult to maintain its success, not only because of the relationships, that were developed be this leader, but also because a new leader should share the same ideas and be as committed as the previous one.

In case of SWA we can assert that the company has accomplished this challenge. In 2008 former CEO of SWA Herbert Kelleher stepped down from business. Gary C. Kelly became the new CEO. Not long after this change, the newly crowned leader published a “Southwest Cares Report” explaining company’s mission and vision, and summarizing SWA’s performance in 2008. According to it, SWA’s way includes 3 main things: warrior’s spirit, servant’s heart and fun-LUVing attitude. First and foremost, Southwest strives to do the right thing and to deliver the service of the best quality to their customers. Company’s mission also includes nurturing their employees, taking care of the environment and hoping for the future. The Report clearly shows that the core values of Southwest Airlines have remained the same (Southwest Airlines, 2008). Another proof can be found in an interview, given by Colleen Barrett, President of Southwest Airlines. She emphasizes the importance of caring about employees and customers and describes the servant nature of the company. She mentions, “I am as good as a follower as I am a leader (if I am one)”.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 880